(Abridged) Planetesimals embedded in a protoplanetary disc are stirred by gravitational torques exerted by density fluctuations in the surrounding turbulence. In particular, planetesimals in a disc supporting fully developed magneto-rotational turbulence are readily excited to velocity dispersions above the threshold for catastrophic disruption, halting planet formation. We aim to examine the stirring of planetesimals lying instead in a magnetically-decoupled midplane dead zone, stirred only by spiral density waves propagating out of the disc's magnetically-coupled turbulent surface layers. We extend previous studies to include a wider range of disc models, and explore the effects of varying the disc column density and external magnetic field strength. [...] The strength of the stirring is found to be independent of the gas surface density, which is contrary to the increase with disc mass expected from a simple linear wave picture. The discrepancy arises from the shearing out of density waves as they propagate into the dead zone, resulting in density structures near the midplane that exert weaker stochastic torques on average. We provide a simple analytic fit to our numerically obtained torque amplitudes that accounts for this effect. The stirring on the other hand depends sensitively on the net vertical magnetic flux, up to a saturation level above which magnetic forces dominate in the turbulent layers. For the majority of our models, the equilibrium planetesimal velocity dispersions lie between the thresholds for disrupting strong and weak aggregates, suggesting that collision outcomes will depend on material properties. However, discs with relatively weak magnetic fields yield reduced stirring, and their dead zones provide safe-havens even for the weakest planetesimals against collisional destruction.
Planet formation at the inner edge of the dead zone II. Outbursts, rings, vortices, and suppression of planetesimal formation
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München(慕尼黑大学);Universitäts-Sternwarte(大学天文台);Max Planck Institute for Astronomy(马克斯·普朗克天文学研究所);Exzellenzcluster ORIGINS(ORIGINS 卓越集群)
The inner solar system possesses a unique orbital structure in which there are no planets inside the Mercury orbit and the mass is concentrated around the Venus and Earth orbits. The origins of these features still remain unclear. We propose a novel concept that the building blocks of the inner solar system formed at the dead-zone inner edge in the early phase of the protosolar disk evolution, where the disk is effectively heated by the disk accretion. First, we compute the dust evolution in a gas disk with a dead zone and obtain the spatial distribution of rocky planetesimals. The disk is all…
The formation of planetesimals is an unsolved problem in planet formation theory. A prominent scenario for overcoming dust growth barriers in dead zones is the gravitational collapse of locally over-dense regions, shown to robustly produce $\sim$100 km sized objects. Still, the conditions under which planetesimal formation occurs remain unclear. For collapse to proceed, the self-gravity of an overdensity must overcome stellar tidal disruption on large scales and turbulent diffusion on small scales. Here, we relate the scales of streaming and Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, which both regulate pa…
Forming planetesimals from pebbles is a major challenge in our current understanding of planet formation. In a protoplanetary disk, pebbles drift inward near the disk midplane via gas drag and they may enter a dead zone. In this context, we identified that the backreaction of the drag of pebbles onto the gas could lead to a runaway pile-up of pebbles, the so-called no-drift mechanism. We improve upon the previous study of the no-drift mechanism by investigating the nature and characteristics of the resultant planetesimal belt. We performed 1D diffusion-advection simulations of drifting pebbles…
On the dynamics of planetesimals embedded in turbulent protoplanetary discs
原行星盘中的角动量输运和吸积通常被认为是由MHD湍流通过磁旋转不稳定性(MRI)驱动的。嵌入这些圆盘中的固体(尘埃颗粒、巨石、微行星和行星)的动力学可能受到湍流的强烈影响,因此行星系的形成路径部分取决于湍流的强度和空间分布。我们使用三维MHD模拟研究了嵌入湍流原行星盘中的半径在1米至10公里之间的微行星的动力学。微行星受到气体阻力和随机引力的作用,这是由于湍流盘造成的。在这项研究中,我们使用并比较了局部剪切箱模拟和全球模型的结果。这项工作的主要目的是检查:的增长,和可能的饱和度,嵌入式微行星的速度色散作为其大小和光盘参数的函数;微行星的径向迁移和扩散的速率;剪切盒和全球模拟结果一致的条件下。当使用尺寸为4 H x 16 H x 2 H的剪切盒(H为局部尺度高度)时,我们发现局部和全局模拟之间存在良好的一致性。由于螺旋密度波的激发和传播,所获得的密度波动的幅度对盒子的尺寸敏感。这影响了微行星所经历的随机强迫。[...]我们的模型表明,充分发展的MHD湍流在原行星盘将嵌入星子的破坏性影响。相对较低的湍流水平需要的星子吸积的传统模型的运作,这是一致的存在一个死区的原行星盘。
A notable challenge of planet formation is to find a path to directly form planetesimals from small particles. We aim to understand how drifting pebbles pile up in a protoplanetary disk with a non-uniform turbulence structure. We consider a disk structure in which the midplane turbulence viscosity is increasing with radius in protoplanetary disks as in the outer region of a dead zone. We perform 1D diffusion-advection simulations of pebbles that include back-reaction (the inertia) to radial drift and vertical/radial diffusion of pebbles for a given pebble-to-gas mass flux. We report a new mech…
Excitation of Rossby wave instability and development of a large-scale vortex at the outer dead zone edge of protoplanetary discs is one of the leading theories that explains horseshoe-like brightness distribution in transition discs. Formation of such vortices requires a relatively sharp viscosity transition. Detailed modelling, however, indicates that viscosity transitions at the outer edge of the dead zone is relatively smooth. In this study, we present 2D global, non-isothermal, gas-dust coupled hydrodynamic simulations to investigate the possibility of vortex excitation at smooth viscosit…
In the innermost regions of protoplanerary discs, the solid-to-gas ratio can be increased considerably by a number of processes, including photoevaporative and particle drift. MHD disc models also suggest the existence of a dead-zone at $R\lesssim 10$ AU, where the regions close to the midplane remain laminar. In this context, we use two-fluid hydrodynamical simulations to study the interaction between a low-mass planet ($\sim 1.7 \;{\rm M_\oplus}$) on a fixed orbit and an inviscid pebble-rich disc with solid-to-gas ratio $ε\ge 0.5$. For pebbles with Stokes numbers St=0.1, 0.5, multiple dusty …